We are putting together a Fan Cookbook and we need your help. We have a special request to ask of you, our followers and fans. Please send us your family favorites so we may begin to compile and write a FAN INSPIRED COOKBOOK we will put online for .97 to help cover formatting and cover art costs.

We'd like to thank you for supporting us and what better way than to make available comfort food recipes from family kitchens all over the world. This is gonna be fun. Tell us where the recipes came from and what your memories are of the family recipe you submit.

Our Mama has always been something of a marvel; although she would tell you that she is a ordinary woman who has just led an interesting life. She adored her husband Wilbur, “Gib”, still loves her three girls, (the 3 Texas Sisters), two granddaughters, a grandson-in-law, and now one great grandson whom we all lovingly call, Woogie.

Mama is not only a marvelous cook, creating recipes from scratch; but her talents stretch way beyond the front door, into the flower garden and vegetable laden yard; out into the community where she was always active in anything that pertained to the feminine side of agriculture and the beef industry. She was a true partner in every sense of the word to our daddy’s business.

When she wasn’t being “the Queen Mum of the farms”, she was a Camp Fire Girls of America, leader who taught us the ways of the American Indian and how it applied to modern day life. She ran carpool before there was such a term, taking both me and my sister Mona to Amarillo for our weekly voice (singing) lesson.

Growing up, she traveled extensively with her father throughout the Southwest, and traded stories, thoughts and lore with the Navajo. She has even been known to do a rain dance and literally make it rain. She’s always been one with the earth and taught us through gardening to be protective of its fragile eco-system.

Her gorgeous garden filled our house with flowers from Spring until late Fall, and her substantial vegetable garden stocked our freezer and stomachs the year round. When she wasn’t freezing vegetables, she was canning everything imaginable from cucumbers, green beans, black-eyed peas, corn, peaches, cherries and pears or making a large variety of jellies and preserves to brighten those cold snow laden days. One day, she decided to raise grapes so she could make homemade vinegar. Our house smelled like a brewery for a weeks as the grapes fermented and then became some of the best vinegar, I’ve ever tasted.

She made beautiful doll cakes, not for show; but for the love of creating something that would make people smile. And, every birthday, Mona and Terie Beth did just that, and then ripped the head off the doll and ate the cake. She never missed a friend’s birthday nor a special occasion. She would whip up a batch of delicious cookies, a pie or cake at the drop of a hat for all our school activities. I’ve also never known a woman who could iron as well as our Mama. She even ironed daddy’s underwear. As daddy’s girth spread, he used to accuse her of ironing bumps into his shirts. He’d heard Mama’s brother tell his wife Emma something to that effect, and decided it was the perfect excuse to why his stomach stretched. None of us believed a word of it. Daddy loved to eat and he loved Mama, fiercely.

Whenever the church doors opened, Mama was there, Bible in hand, us in tow and Daddy on her arm, though a mere ten minutes earlier, she might have been running out the front door, paring knife in hand, cleaning her fingernails and trying to put her hat on at the same time. And thirty minutes prior to that, she’d washed the breakfast dishes, put lunch in the oven to cook, helped Daddy tie his tie, dressed us and combed our hair. Mama was multi-tasking before it was fashionable.

Mama has always been young at heart, and even at eighty-nine she can still make a mean breakfast, lunch and dinner and do a little jitterbug. Her delightful sense of humor has always been an inspiration to us. She loves to laugh and is something of a practical joker, like this past Christmas when she gave my sister Mona a pair of rain boots in place the custom made cowboy boots she wanted for Christmas. Needless to say, Mona was not amused but Mama couldn’t stop smiling with devilish delight.

Mama was one of eight children, six of whom are still living. She is the second child of John and Lillie Mae Horvath. Being half Hungarian and half Irish-English, Mama could roll with the best of them, and her temper was just as effective when she was fighting for something she believed to be right. Granddad always said the best part of Mama was her discerning Hungarian blood. Mama has always had a “sixth sense”. If she said “something” was gonna happen, you might as well gather up all your jacks and ball and go home because she was and is rarely wrong.

So through these recipes and series of books, we hope to share our Mama with you and your family, and hope that you will feel you are a part of our family.